Turbo stimulus package for a buck

Jet Fuel is the name of this too-cool-to-crack-a-smile Cabbagetown cafe, whose branding nails their offering really well. They have good quality fuel by way of java, and they have all the hip you’d ever want in a coffee shop.

This is not their logo, by the way, but just a great find tumblred by Bella Illusione. Thanks Bella. This is their logo.

Jet Fuel delivers to the under-caffeinated in two significant ways. They give you a double shot of espresso for $1. Beat that any of you cafés out there. And their signature bevvy for the lollygaggers — folks who don’t need to bolt out the door fired up with a liquid charge — is an eponymous combo of cappuccino and latte in one cup. Why? Because no one else does.

If you’ve chosen to meet a friend or a crush here, good luck finding a place to sit. And be ready to whisper-talk directly into one another’s ear [which is why the crush option is a good one], because it’s as loud as a jet engine in there.

No. It’s not, not really, but it’s loud. It’s a small room with high ceilings, filled with talking caffeinated souls. It’s no wonder.

Dave and Dave made some babies. It took them nine months. They called them Joulies. Here are a couple of Joulies doing what they do best: keeping hot beverages at 140ºF.

Here’s how Joulies work:

Their stainless steel exterior holds a liquid that absorbs the heat from your just-poured, too-hot-to-drink coffee, until it reaches 140ºF. Then, as your coffee starts to cool down, the Joulies release their stored energy to keep your coffee hot. Which explains why the Daves named their babies after James Prescott Joule, the 19th century physicist whose work led to the discovery of the first law of thermodynamics.

Smarties in their own right

Dave Petrillo [lovingly holding Joulies above] and Dave Jackson are both mechanical engineers. They were motivated to make Joulies because they were fed up with having only that small window of opportunity to enjoy their coffee at the right temperature.

Coffee always seems to start out too hot and then quickly gets too cold, leaving you feeling you’ve missed the boat, coffee-temperature-flavour-wise. Speaking for myself, temperature is the most important flavour element in my coffee, which is why this story dug into me so deep.

Getting down to business

The Daves made the first 100 Joulies themselves. “It took about a couple of hours each,” one of them said in this video they made for Kickstarter, a site for startups to pitch ideas and crowd-source funding.

The Joulie Daddies asked for $9,500 — to match their half of the first mechanized run — and offered pre-orders to individuals and coffee shops. But Kickstarter is such a great platform, and the Joulies are such a great idea, that the Daves came away with over 32 times that amount and 8,000 pre-orders. Read more…